r of his friends and returned, but he soon
discovered that the rancorous, bitter feelings which had arisen during
the war were not extinct, and that it was too soon for a British subject
to seek a home in the United States. My mother loved her native city,
and might not have been induced again to leave it had it not been for
domestic affliction. She brought from the healthy climate of New
Brunswick four fine children, all of whom she buried in New York in
eight weeks. She gave birth to four more; three of those had died also,
and she felt sure if she stayed there she would lose the only remaining
one. Therefore she readily consented to my father's proposal to come to
Canada, where his old friend, General Simcoe, was at that time governor.
In the summer of 1794 my father and a friend started for Canada. The
journey was then a most formidable one, and before commencing it wills
were made and farewells given, as if a return was more than doubtful.

"On his arrival at Niagara he was warmly greeted by his old friend,
General Simcoe, who advised him by all means to settle in Canada,
holding out many inducements for him to do so. He promised my father a
grant of 3,000 acres of land as a captain in the army, 1,200 as a
settler, and that my mother and each of her sons should have a grant of
1,200, and each of her daughters a grant of 600 acres.

"My father was pleased with what he saw of the country, and heard a
favourable account of the climate, and decided at once to return as
early the ensuing year as possible. On his return to New York he
commenced making arrangements for his move the ensuing spring.

"It would be much easier for a family to go from Canada to China now,
than it was to come from New York to Canada then. He had to purchase a
boat large enough to hold his family and goods, with supplies of
groceries for two or three years, with farming utensils, tools, pots,
boilers, etc., and yet the boat must not be too large to get over the
portage from the Hudson to the Mohawk. As there were no waggon roads
from Albany to the Niagara frontier, families coming to Canada had to
come down the Mohawk to Lake Ontario, and enter Canada in that way. My
father found it a weary journey, and was months in accomplishing it.

"On my father's arrival at Niagara, at that time the seat of government,
he called on his Excellency General Simcoe, who had just returned from a
tour through the Province of Canada West, then one vast wildernes